The Black Death

September 12th 1349

Dear Diary,

                   My name is Autumn Druid. I am thirteen years old and live in a small, thatched house on the outskirts of Yorkshire. I have a mother called Lilith and a brother called Espere whose name means Hope. There is a vile monster crawling through Britain. It is called ‘Black Death.’ It has been given its name as it kills anyone in its path. This is the creature that murdered my  father, Argent. He was a farmer and worked in the luscious, green fields behind our house. Those fields are not beautiful anymore. I looked out the back windows this morning. All I could see were valleys of rat-infected mud. Most farm workers have caught the plague; some are even dead, like Pa. I have been mourning  for months, so has my five year old brother. My mother has stayed strong even though we are all weak with hunger due to the lack of food produced. However, that is not our only problem.

                    Espere is extremely ill. He has been sick several times today and he’s burning up.  Not just that, at lunch he had a spasm. He said that it was so painful and wouldn’t stop crying.  Just seeing Espere like that made me want to cry too.  Mother won’t let me near him as she doesn’t want me to catch the plague. But I don’t care, as long as I am with Espere, nothing else matters.  I am very worried for I do not want Espere to end up like Pa. He is only five after all and that is too young an age to die.

                    At tea-time, or what should have been tea-time, there was absolutely nothing on our plates. The water was too dirty to drink and the air was too polluted with plague to even breathe. I’m parched, starving, and tired. Mother made me go to bed really early so that I would not get tired for a busy morning at sunrise. I have to farm in order to put a little food into our stomachs and a little money in our pockets. Unfortunately, I cannot get to sleep. I assume that it is past midnight. I was woken up by Espere who was sniffling on the hard, cold floor in the next room. (we can’t  sleep in the same room as Ma won’t allow it.) I did not want to wake Ma as she already has enough to worry about so I sat next to Espere and asked him what was wrong. He said that he felt too ill to move, or to talk, or even to cry. His eyes were encased in dark circles. He hasn’t slept properly for days due to frequent nightmares and sickness. I told him to close his eyes and not to talk otherwise he would get worse. He asked me to sing him a lullaby.  So I sang one extremely quietly so as to not wake Mother.

 Rest thy head , close thy eyes, dream thy dreams until sunrise, vanquish nightmares they are done. Keep dreaming till King Death hath won

After I had finished, Espere was fast asleep. I hugged him close and kissed him on the cheek, praying for him to get better and hoping that I wouldn’t catch the plague also. So here I am, on the floor, writing in you, diary and trying to get to sleep. I am afraid that Mother will tell me off for staying awake. I need to rest in order to work in the fields tomorrow or I will never forgive myself if I oversleep.

I shall write in you tomorrow,

Autumn